Page 85 of The Phantom Duke
“Please… don’t stop…”
“Oh, I have no intention of stopping, my dear wife!”
He buried his face in her neck, exhaling hard against her skin as he rubbed her faster, the silk fabric no longer a barrier but a tease. The scent of lavender and roses filled her senses. Everything about her was so undeniably gentle, beautiful, and feminine. It seemed impossible that any woman so magnificent could possibly want him, yet she did.
Her thighs trembled, and new wetness glistened over her pale, lily-white skin. Maria’s back arched, and a sharp cry ripped from her throat.
He shifted his hand and found the heat of her skin beneath, sliding another finger between the wet folds with nothing now to stop him.
She moaned; head thrown back against the tree bark, eyes fluttering shut.
He withdrew his fingers. Teased her entrance. She gasped and reached for him blindly, as if to anchor herself to his chest.
“I want…” she began, voice breaking.
“I know,” he breathed. “I feel it.”
And then he slipped one finger once more inside her, his palm cradling her, thumb circling that aching spot until she cried out with unrestrained need.
He moved in her, his pace patient but intense, curling his fingers as if learning her from the inside out. She bucked against him, her breath coming in shallow bursts. His other hand tangled in her hair and gently pulled, tilting her mouth back up to his. Maria’s eyes were dazed, silently begging for more.
He could not even say if she knew what more he had to offer. Damien’s lips curled into a sly smile, delighting in being the first and only man who would ever show her such a world of pleasure.
She clung to him. Not out of fear, but out of need.
And beneath the ancient tree, masked no longer, Damien finally allowed himself to be a man, not a beast, not a phantom.
Just a man.
With a woman who wantedallof him. Maria cried out, her release shuddering through her with such force that the young woman’s knees nearly buckled.
“Now,” Damien purred, reaching for his own trousers and aching manhood. “This is how it feels to be mine.”
CHAPTER 22
“Brother! Are you out there?”
The voice reached into the forest on treacherous winds and conspiring configurations of branches that allowed the words to seep and writhe their way to the oak tree.
Damien stirred from a deep, contented sleep. He was naked from the waist up, his shirt dangling from a branch. His body was arranged as though in a hammock, feet and head supported by ancient wood. Maria lay curled up at his side, her head resting on his stomach, cushioned beneath her hands.
His coat served as a blanket for her. He opened his eyes to darkness, the shifting darkness of the canopy and the greater darkness of the starless night beyond it. For a moment, his mind was blank of everything except the pleasant hours they had spent. Talking or whispering. Touching and kissing. Reminiscing about lives spent separate from each other but now shared as though they were childhood friends.
In his mind, the memory was one of a state of bliss, not to be replicated in the waking world. It had been a dream.
“Brother!” came the voice again.
Then another, indistinct but with a protesting tone, as though remonstrating.
“Brother!”
Damien came fully awake with a start. Maria moaned in her sleep, clutching him and then lifting her head, wakefulness intruding on her own blissful memories.
“What is it?” Maria asked.
“A man calling for his brother. A man who is calling into these woods,” Damien said.
“It can’t be!” Maria said, sitting up.
